Bottles in the Briny

Title

Language

English

Source

Panorama XII (10) October 1960

Year

1960

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Fulltext

Ahoy, there! Mottles in the Mriny on’t ignore that halfburied bottle on the beach. It could contain a message that might help solve a mystery of the sea, win you a wife or husband, save a ship wrecked sailor or make you rich. One winter day in 1955, Aarke Wiking of Goteburg, Sweden, tossed a bottle off his ship into the Mediterranean. The bottle contained a note which asked “all girls aged 16 to 20” if they wanted to marry a “handsome, blond Swede.” Last May, Sebastiano Puzzo, factory worker and father of many girls, found the sealed bottle on a lonely Sicilian beach. Smashing it open, he saw the Swedish sailor’s mes sage, had it translated and promptly sent him a picture of his 18-year-old daughter, Paolina. She soon started corres ponding with the 24-year-old sailor, and married him not long ago in Syracuse, Sicily. A farm boy in the Azores discovered a sealed bottle con taining a note which promised to pay the finder $1,000 — if the note were forwarded to a New York address. The boy duly collected his reward from a radio-program sponsor who had cast the bottle into New York harbor as a publicity stunt. Such “money-bottles” are often tossed into the sea by wealthy cruise passengers. Recently a scrawled S.O.S. sealed in a bottle, supposedly signed by two shipwrecked German pilots 15 years ago, washed up on the island of Majorca. Written on the back of an instruction that told how to inflate a life raft, the mes sage said: “August 1943, ship wrecked south of Espiritu San to Island, S.O.S. Heil Hitler.” It carried two signatures — of men who were never found. Twenty-five years ago, Doyle Branscum sealed a picture of himself in a basketball uniform inside a bottle and tossed it in to a river in Arkansas. Last winter the bottle washed up on a beach near Largo, Florida. Bill Headstream of Largo found the photo and, using the return address on the back, mailed it to Branscum. Headstream and Branscum were boyhood friends when Headstream lived in Ar 26 Panorama kansas. They hadn’t heard from each other until the bot tle incident Some years ago, a Soviet fisherman plucked a small wa tertight container from sea ice in the Russian Arctic. Inside was a note, written in Norwe gian and English, which read: “Five ponies and 150 dogs re maining. Desire hay, fish and 30 sledges. Must return early in August. Baffled.” HE MESSAGE had been re leased by the polar explo rer, Evelyn Baldwin, and had drifted in the Actic Ocean for 45 years. (The expedition came through safely anyway, and Baldwin died a natural death in 1933.) Scientists for many years have been using bottle-mail to study ocean currents and winds. Such studies enabled Benjamin Franklin to chart the Gulf Stream. Perhaps the busiest bottle mailers are members of the U.S. Navy Hydrographic Of fice, Washington, D. C. Each year, they throw thousands of corked bottles, containing forms printed in eight languages, in cluding Esperanto, into waters around the world. Finders are asked to take or mail the en closed forms to any U.S. con sul for forwarding to Washing ton, where the information is used to study ocean currents. Some time ago one such bottle was dropped into the In dian Ocean. It was subsequent ly picked up off the coast of British Somaliland by a Mos lem named Mohammed Mustapha. Unable to read any of the printed languages, he jumped on his camel and raced to the nearest British agent, who filled out the form and mailed it to Washington. About two months later, the native rushed back to the agent’s office waving a large pilot chart of his native waters and a letter from the hydrographer thanking him for his services. The chart, Moham med insisted, was a draft on the U.S. Government, and he de manded to know why the local bank would not cash it. Bottle messages are also used to help spread the word of God. A West Coast preacher collects empty liquor bottle. After cleaning them, he inserts ser mons and sets them adrift on the seas. There are, of course, the bot tle-message practical jokers. Once in a while bottle-mail washes up a message such as “Ship sinking! Help!” These are readily recognized as hoaxes because the alleged ship’s given position usually plots atop a mountain or miles inland. Beer bottles, ketchup bottles, whisky bottles, champagne botOCTOBER 1960 27 ties, Chianti bottles — all kinds of bottles are bobbing up and down on the waters of the world. What messages to they contain? S.O.S.? Lonelyhearts? Money-mail? Not even the winds and the ocean waves know the answers. ¥ * * Try Again Q ff the coast of Newfoundland, a ship collided with a fishing boat in a heavy fog. No real damage was done, but as the offending ship tried to back off, it banged into the boat again. The cap tain was afraid he might have done some damage with the second blow. “Can you stay afloat?” he shouted through a megaphone to the floundering vic tim. “I guess so,” called back the skipper of the boat. “Do you want to try again?” Young Logic ^Tive-year-old Jimmy’s mother was seldom sur prised by anything she found in her offspring’s pockets. However, she was a little more than curious when she found a wad of grass in his pocket one day. She called him in from play and asked why it was there. Answered Jimmy with firm logic, “That worm 1 have in there had to eat, didn’t he?” 28 Panorama

pages

26-28

Media